


Flurry

by almost_certain



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Blacksmithing, F/M, Faceless Arya, One Shot, Porn With Plot, Revenge, Smut, Some Plot, Winter, alright the plot is secondary, he's still a bastard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-21 20:00:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7401850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/almost_certain/pseuds/almost_certain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gendry thinks of Arya whenever the inns new serving girl comes around. They don't even look that much alike, there's just something about their eyes... </p><p>Smut that I've attempted to put some plot behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flurry

He's hammering away on a simple enough hinge when the door to the forge blows open with a hiss of wind. The cold sweeps in and chills his back even for the furnace blazing at his front. The three men don't wait for him to turn, they're already barking their orders.

'Well man, you're a lucky man.' He turns to look over his shoulder. 'We'll pay you twice what you're used to in this piss end town.'

The man who had spoken is short and fatter than he is tall. He is swaddled in fine looking furs, the snow melt shimmering on the white and grey. He ruffles the flakes from his grey black beard and rubs a hand through his rosy fat nose. He looks like he thinks he's in charge.

'Now Mackie,' The blond at the back who despite his own thick sandy furs is nothing but skin, his eyes sunken and cheekbones hollow. His hair is thinning at the top, and the ponytail hangs limp at the back. He is not going to survive winter, Gendry knows for certain. He runs his hand over some swords hung decoratively on the wall. 'Don't be so hasty. We won't pay any extra if it's shit.'

The real leader, or at least the one Gendry made for the biggest threat, the tall and dark man in a black wolf skin cloak with a neatly kept black beard ignores the other two, and gives an apologetic smile before he crosses the front of the forge to stop just the other side of the charred black anvil. 'That's skilfully made, that armour.' He nods to a suit set aside at the back, one he hadn't quite got around to finishing. 'Antlers?'

'Stylistic choice of the man who paid for it.' Gendry shrugs, wiping his hands on his leather apron.

'Aye.' The man looks as if he's mulling it over, sizing him up. 'Don't see Smith's this good this far out of King's Landing.' He nods again, this time to a beautiful but mostly ornamental knife meant as a betrothal gift for a young hunter's sweet heart.

'Haven't always lived here.' Gendry agrees, hand returning to the handle of his hammer. 'Lots of people travel.'

The man smiles, holds up one hand and shakes his head. 'I don't really care how you came to be here, but I will ask you to take a look at our swords. Do what you can?'

'There's a lot to do in winter.'

The bag of coin hits the metal with a thunk. 'Oh aye, much more to do than anyone realises. That'll go a long way to getting some of it done around here though, don't you think.'

He picks it up and weighs it in his palm. The man doesn't seem like the other two, though he is also dressed as a lord. He wears the least finery and carries himself without the tension in the top of his spine and shoulders. While the other two had appraised the goods along the wall with upturned lips he kept his expression pleasant, admiring almost of the work. Gendry finds he hates him far less than the other two.

'Another bag in it if you can get it done before this storm passes.' He turns to leave, calling the other two to follow without so much as a nod.

'Should be easy.' Gendry calls, counting the coins out in to his palm. 'This storm will be a long one.'

The tallest man laughs, and he catches in his eye a certain tiredness with the other men, and with the situation as a whole.

She bursts in not a full minute after they have left, and he still has his coins out, he's counting them for the first time. She pushes herself against the door, closing it against the wind and the flurry. There's snow in her tawny hair, clinging to her thin shawl, the bodice of her dress. 'Those men, are they lords?' She asks, taking a few steps towards him and the glow of the forge.

He shrugs, watching as she shakes the snow from her hair before readjusting her shawl. 'I don't know.' Her eyes wander around the forge, at the swords they had touched to the coins spilt next to his hammer at the anvil. 'Magda sent me. Says you have to go over there and have something to eat.'

Her eyes match hers exactly, an icy grey that pierce him. She's not like her at all otherwise. She's feminine and thick at the hips and breast, forced up with her bodice and pink in the cold, snow melt dappling her skin above the leather. She is shy and jittery, her hands constantly at her mouth or nose or chin as if to shield her. She's beautiful, very, skin fair and her hair thick and long and glowing in the orange of the fire behind him. She shouldn't remind him of her at all, not with the way he thinks of her at night, not the way you think of a lady.

'Says a smith's no good if he's hungry.'

He sighs, reaching up to smooth back his dark hair. 'Angie.'

'Hm?' She jolts at her name.

'I'll be over in five. Just let me finish these hooks for the inn...'

'If she has to send me again she will not be happy.' The girl smiles, a small gap between her front teeth.

'There'll be no need.' He finds himself grinning back, and for a moment he doesn't think she'll leave. He wonders if he should throw down the hammer and cross the space, should take what she is so obviously trying to give him. Before he can she sighs a little sadly and turns to leave.

He doesn't know why she reminds him of Arya Stark. It must just be the eyes, and maybe her smile when she doesn't think he's looking, or the way she comes in to the forge for no reason and watches him work some nights. He's found since she arrived in town not two weeks past, that his memories have changed, that his thoughts of Arya have been tarnished. He can see her in his mind know a mixture of the young lady back then and Angie, her curves and crooked smile. He thinks if she were still alive he would throw himself at her feet and beg her forgiveness for leaving, for looking the wrong way for too long, for being a fool and thinking her was anything but a bastard...

'Gendry?' He realises she's asked him something and manages to shrug and slur a nonsense response. 'The knife, its beautiful.'

He nods and she's gone in a flurry of snow flakes and a rush of cold. He thinks of Arya Stark.

* * *

The two men will not shut up. 'If they think I'm following another fucking Stark... That's all I'm saying...'

'That whore's husband wasn't a stark.' The fat one slams his tankard down on the table. 'We didn't follow a stark, we followed a Tully with a Stark son.'

'Robb Stark was king of nothing.' The blond shouts, and when he looks around and catches the eye of the blacksmith he only turns back with a grunt. 'Does that answer your question?'

'Perfectly my lords.' The tallest man rubs a tired hand over his eyes. 'But I didn't ask a question. I know why you're here, I know why you're not throwing your lot in with the new king in the north and frankly I don't care. What I want to know is if you two are coughing up for me to have a separate room tonight or if you're expecting me to foot my own bill...'

The fat one almost chokes on his ale.

'Are you not a lord? In the Lannister's pocket no less.'

'Well yeah, but it's the difference for me between one woman tonight or two.' He sticks a finger in his ear and wiggles it around, then leans backwards and tries to get the attention of a serving girl as she passes. He whispers something in her ear and she giggles, turning crimson as she rises and looks around at the half full inn. She nods and turns to head to the bar. The tall man licks his lips. 'I trust you two will be able to find yer own way up the stairs?'

Gendry realises his jaw is clenched when she sits down next to him, exaggeratedly throwing her cloth down and holding her hand to her forehead. 'Thank goodness they're all starting to leave.' She's talking about the regulars, the men from the town who came in snow or shine to eat and drink their fill. Now only he and the residents remained, a few drifters and a few that never moved on for one reason or another. 'I can do whatever I want soon.' She smiled sweetly. 'Probably sleep.' She added, looking down when his eyes never left the remaining two men.

He is grinding his teeth with every mention of her family name, with ever slur or slight against the Stark honour. 

'Why do you care so much?' She asks quite suddenly, her had resting not too far from his at the table. Alarmingly close actually, and he moves it to his lap. 'Did you fight for the Starks?' She asks, leaning ever so slightly closer.

'No.' He answers, and she seems to mull that over for a while. 'But I don't believe what they're saying.'

She narrows her eyes, and her next words are cold as the winter winds that beat gently against the front door. 'If they were such a great house perhaps they wouldn't all be dead in the ground.' She watches for a response, she gets one.

He doesn't say anything. Instead the air draws out low and long from his chest and he pushes his bowl away, turning from her to climb out of the bench. He doesn't say goodnight, before he knows it he's out in the cold, fighting the wind and the onslaught of flakes the size of his palm until he's in the forge, reaching for his hammer and the tallest man's sword.

He throws a log on to the fire and the flame that was almost out picks up and cracks and spits as it dries out the new wood. The metal's glowing red hot when the door opens again with a thump where the wind forces it into the wall. She stands like a doe in the line of a hunter's bow, her eyes wide and unblinking as she looks at him. She tries to close the door but the wind is persistant, and he's across to slam it before she can move. He looks at her, lips firmly shut and hammer still hanging from his right hand. 'What do you want?' He asks, before lowering his tone and offering her a judgemental 'You should have worn a cloak.'

'I should have.' She agrees, before frowning and following him across once more to the crackling fire. 'I came to apologise... If I offended you...'

'You didn't.' He nods, and his hammer comes down with a sharp clang on the blade.

'You acted like I had.' She frowns, and he catches her pout out of the corner of his eye. Once more she reminds him of Arya. She smiles suddenly. 'Did you fight for them?'

'No.' He lines up another strike but decides against it, picking the sword up and cooling it in a shower of steam instead. His hammer he returns to the hook on the wall. 'I knew a stark.'

'A Stark?' She raises an eyebrow. 'The bastard?'

'No.' He shifts uneasily, leaning to sit back against a workbench. 'The youngest daughter.'

'Oh.' She frowns at him then. 'A lover?' She sounds jealous. She looks like she doesn't believe him.

'No! No, gods no.' He laughs. 'No, I met Arya Stark when I was going north to...' He clears his throat. 'I was supposed to stay with her. To protect her. I let her down and now she's dead.'

The girl watches him for a moment, then when he doesn't say any more she shrugs a shoulder, her shawl falling free to reveal the goose flesh of her arm, the swell of her breast. 'I think that family was cursed far before you met her.'

He finds his eyes wandering down the contours of her chest, down the simple leather of her bodice, down to her hands on her hips.

'I don't think she'll hold it against you.'

He shakes his head but she's already pulling at his wrist, then his fingers, molding them between her own, tracing every scar and nick. 'You're a good man. You've made this town your home. Because of you these people may survive the winter. You could be working anywhere with your skill, the people here are well aware, and yet you stay here and help them prepare...'

'I thought to go to Winterfell.' He swallows, but she doesn't look up from his palm. 'To help her brother, her sister. To help them take back the north...'

'Fight for them?'

'Maybe.'

She bends low and places her lips at his pulse where it dances in his wrist. 'Would you want to?' She asks, and when he doesn't answer she raises a hand to her bodice, pulling it low over her left breast until he can almost see...

He snatches her wrist and pulls her close, one hand going rough to her arse and digging his fingers in to the swell of muscle there, bruising as he pulls her closer.

'Ser Gendry...'

He thinks of Arya, of her eyes when he last saw her. Of her disappointment, the anger he saw. 'Why is it you've not left me alone since you arrived?' He shakes her and lets her go, taking a step back to rake his hands over his thick black hair.

She at least has the decency to look stunned for a moment before her winter grey eyes fix at the floor and her mouth twists in to another little pout. 'Do you not like my company...'

'You say things like she did.' He says and at once his cheeks flush red because he sounds so stupid, so simple trying to explain it. Out loud it's insane, an idea so farfetched he can only question the soundness of his own thoughts, but for days now he'd almost believed that this person... 'Oh the seven know I'm crazy.' He kicks at the leg of the workbench and the whole thing buckles, sending metal scraps and the antlered helmet crashing to the hard earth floor. 'You look nothing like her! And she was hardly a woman grown when I knew her but I swear...' He turns back and his heart jumps to find her not looking at him as if he was crazy, her eyes clear and her face still. 'I swear there's something in you that was in her. I swear those eyes...'

Her hands drop to her sides from her chest. She looks as if she might speak, but she only sighs gently.

'Like you've seen enough but you don't ever want to stop seeing.' He knows how stupid it sounds, it isn't anywhere near the sentiment he had intended, but it's out now, growing louder in the silence. 'I wonder some times...' He says once the wind picks up a whistle again and it's obvious she won't say a word. 'If she wasn't dead, if I'd stayed and kept her safe instead of trying to be a knight.' He adds after some thought. 'Trying to be a prince...'

'You're too good to be a prince.' She says finally, after his words die with the crackle of the fire and the distant knock of the blacksmith sign against the wood of outside. 'I think you're far greater as a bastard than any of the princes I've ever met.'

He stares at her, her eyes holding his. They are cold and sharp and unflinching.

'I never said I was a bastard.' He half whispers.

She shrugs, shifts from foot to foot in a rare display of discomfort, then reaches up to run a hand through her hair. It seems darker to him almost at once. He watches her face change, in fact he's so taken with that he misses the curves of her body alter, the shape of her morphing in to something familiar but also brand new. He thinks he might faint.

'I only meant to stay a night or two.' She shrugs one shoulder. 'Not even here. I was in a town a day down the kings road and they were talking about this bloody Smith who came from nowhere and was singlehandedly keeping this out of the way, middle of nowhere town from falling apart. Well I knew it'd be you. Saw the one man's sword, saw the makers mark. A bull.'

He watches her, this ghost, and he can barely keep his feet under him as she reaches for the ornate knife, takes it in her hand and pulls it free of its guard.

'Not a stag. You're not a stag. I met Robert Baratheon and I firmly believe the only good thing about him is he decided to stick it to your mother.' She raises an eyebrow as if she expects him to laugh but when he can barely even mouth her name she laughs for him. It's more of a giggle really, a painfully awkward giggle. 'I'm not dead.' She puts the knife down and looks around at everything else he's made, at all the bits and pieces. 'I'm sorry I let you think I was, but I let a lot of people think I was. My brother thinks I am, and my sister. So really, you're the first person to know...'

'Arya.' He blinks, eyes stinging. 'What did you...' He points at her face, at her body, and he looks horrified.

'I saw Hot Pie, not a week ago. He's still alive, even in winter but he didn't know who I was.'

He reaches for her but she sidesteps, pressing herself back against the brick wall of the forge.

'It's been nice seeing you again...'

'Arya.' He follows her again, taking her wrist in his rough hand and staring down at her. She avoids his gaze, eyes firmly set on the dirt. 'Look at me, please...'

'It's easier when I'm not myself.' She admits, still staring down even as he tugs on her arm and presses himself against her side. 'I spent a lot of time learning not to be myself so I'm not quite sure what I should do here.'

'Talk to me.' He says softly.

'I was only supposed to stop by. To make sure you were alright.' He takes her other wrist in his hand and she closes her eyes, keeping her face turned down. 'Came a day out of my way for it, and I'm still here...'

'I'm so sorry.' He falls to his knees, aware of how stupid he must look down there in his apron and breeches, of the air being cooler as he looks up at her, finally able to catch the silver gaze. 'I should never have left you. I should have kept you safe...'

'We were children.' She smiles, prising one hand free to lay it on his shoulder. His skin is hot under her hand, all muscle and soot. 'I'd have gotten you killed eventually.' She pulls at his hand. 'Stand up, please...'

'You look so different.' He mumbles as he's pulled ungracefully to his feet. She leads him towards the fire, towards the cot pushed in to the inlet at the back, when he stops she lets his hand drop and turns back. 'Why do you want that?' He asks, and he doesn't know whether to laugh, cry, or kiss her.

She looks outraged. 'Well I... I thought you might...' She looks at the cot and her cheeks light up. 'I don't know. I just thought I'd rather it be you than anyone else in Westeros...'

'What?'

'And I'm sixteen now. I know I'm not the prettiest of girls but I'm not as unfortunate as I was am I?' She looks as though she may hit him when he finally barks a dry laugh. 'Gendry?'

'What? I mean you are... You're pretty... You're fine...'

'Well if you don't want to do it...'

'Do what?' He flounders. 'Arya...'

'I'll just go...'

'It's not you. I've been in love with you since I thought you were dead!' Again he's struck by how stupid his own words sound once they have left his mouth. 'I mean... No, I have. Since I thought you'd been killed with your mother and brother. You were my best friend, and I thought if you'd had the chance you'd have made the most amazing woman.'

She doesn't know where to look, her eyes darting from his to the fire to the floor to the ceiling.

'And once you were dead it didn't matter that I was a bastard and you were a lady, I thought that if you'd grown in to that woman I'd have loved you.' He isn't sure he's making sense, or that he's ever thought this through. It's always been a far off thought that crept up when someone reminded him of her, or when he saw one of the town's girls whacking at the shins of one of the boys. 'Specially now in winter.'

She shakes her head. 'I didn't think you'd miss me that much.' She admits flatly, and suddenly they are both laughing, little bursts that they are trying to keep in. 'I mean, I thought you'd never thought about me... like that...'

'Well I hadn't. Like I said. Til you were gone.' He still can't quite believe she's here. 'You were a child, M'lady.' It kills the nervous laughter, that word. 'Be a bit weird if I had.'

'I didn't feel like a child.'

'But you were one. And I was practically a man.'

'You were a child.' She pouts.

He looks behind him, looks around the forge that's smaller than he had been used to, that's old and falling apart under the winter's ministrations. 'I missed you. When I heard what had happened...'

'Yeah. Yeah I get it.'

He watches as she eyes the cot again. 'You want me?'

Again, she looks as though she's caught in a trap, her eyes wide and face washed blank by the sentiment. She couldn't deny it, but all the same she wouldn't say it, and he knew why.

 'You've ruined it now.' She shrugs one shoulder, and fixes him with a determined smile. 'Now you're going to be all 'you're a lady and you should do lady things' and...'

He sweeps her up a bit too fast given he has no idea what to do next, and with two lumbering footstep he has her shakily supporting herself above the cot with one arm while the other clings to the searing skin of his shoulder. Her nails dig in to the muscle and he thinks she means to maim him until she swallows and relaxes, her eyes flitting from his lips to his adam's apple.

'Will you kiss me then?' She tilts her head and he nods but doesn't move to do it. The fire in the hearth has the room lit orange but in his shadow she's only the sharp lines of her nose and chin, the faint hint of her high cheekbones.

'Were you never going to tell me who you were?'

'Seven hells Gendry.' She lets her hand drop and she falls on to the stiff straw mattress. 'No, alright. No I wasn't.'

He doesn't follow her, the bravery comes in waves. He doesn't think he can kiss her, doesn't think himself capable. Beneath him she shifts and the too big dress outlines her actual body and she's not like any of the few women he's been with before.

He isn't hurt, but in the darkness she takes his silence for offense. 'Sorry, but I didn't really want to stay this long and... I don't think I can be Arya Stark.'

'Oh.' His hand comes to rest on her knee as he climbs on to the cot, letting the firelight dance back over them both, lighting up their features as he kneels at the bottom of the bed. She lets her head fall back on to the one sorry excuse for a pillow and sighs, eyes fixing on the ceiling.

'I tried very hard not to be.' She props herself up on her elbows, and the too big dress droops dangerously low across her breasts. 'But I thought if I was that other girl, if you found me annoying and normal you might like that...'

'I've always found you annoying.'

'Hush up.' She gently swats at his arm and he laughs, just one low huff. She wants to tell him he means a lot to her, it's on the tip of her tongue but it would be easier if she was just some young wanderer working in the tavern. Instead she sits up and pulls the dress sleeves down her arms. She hasn't done this before, not a lot of time to sleep around when you're training to be a faceless man, but she's old enough to feel it now, the urge the tavern girls and actresses of Bravos would sing about in the streets. She'd thought about him when they'd described lust to her, when they'd spoken about men's bodies, their hands. She thought that maybe if she was a stranger she could try it.

No, she thinks. She's not going to bottle it now just because he's worked her out, even if every nerve in her body is screaming at her to get up and bolt.

'You'll have to stay a few days for the storm.' His hand moves up to her hip above the dress, and she can feel how warm he is through it.

She leans forward, little hands reaching for his shoulders, pulling him down until he's hunched over with her lips on his, both hands now splayed across her ribs. He's so much bigger than her, he's very aware, but she keeps trying to pull him down until he yields and they fall back with little grace so that he's leaning over her, and she's pressed very firmly in to the bed.

'Can you even breathe?' He asks as he tries to shift his weight.

'Yes... Yes I'm fine.' She pulls her skirt from under his knee and he drops to the side. She's flustered, if he could believe her to be such a thing.

He sits back up on his knees to untie the apron, and once its loose throws it off the side of the bed. Her hands are on his chest before he can blink, running up the muscles of his abdomen, roaming over his chest. 'Turn around.' He prompts and she glares at him before swinging her legs around and sitting at the edge of the bed. His hands pull at the strings holding the dress together and with some divine mercy the damned things come loose. She's a little disappointed he didn't tear it, but his fingers brushing light against the skin of her nape and then down her spine stir something in her all the same. She lets it drop in the front and once he's done she stands so that the dress may fall away. Her bindings are loose now her shape has changed, and those he pulls away with little effort, fingers and thumbs teasing the soft skin of her stomach and sides. Her smallclothes he takes down from the side, fingers shaking as they travel down her hips, then her thighs. Her breath is uneven as he drags his hands back up the smooth skin of her legs, over her hips to her waist where they stay, frozen.

She tugs at his elbows until he stands on both legs rather than balance between one and a knee on the cot. Her fingers roam down to the ties of his breeches and she's watching his face in the flickering orange light, watching him watch her so intently that she can barely untie them.

He thinks she hasn't even kissed him properly yet, and here she is, naked and outlined in fire in his forge. He takes her face in his hands and tries again, this time opening his mouth. This time she opens hers, and the kiss feels like a kiss, not an awkward empty gesture. It moves like it's a living thing, forward and back as his hands roam the skin of her shoulder blades and hers finally finish with the ties. She pushes his breeches down over his hipbones, down past the hard muscle of his thighs and once they're at his knees he sits back on the cot. Their lips part.

She means to climb on top of him but he keeps her held firmly back so he can drag his lips down her collar bone, down over the slope of her chest until his lips drag across to find her nipple. She arches her back, hands fixing in his thick hair as he licks and sucks and murmurs his appreciation to her skin. She's standing between his legs, and he wonder if she can feel how hard he is when it presses against the soft skin of her thighs, he wonders, quite suddenly, if she's ever done this before, but the way she's gasping and holding him firm tells him it doesn't really matter. His hands move down from the small of her back to the small but prominent swell of her ass. His fingertips dig in as he pulls her towards him and above him he hears her softly swear.

He releases her breast with a soft pop of his lips and looks up half expecting her to chastise him, but she only pushes him back so he shimmies across to make room, pulling his breeches off while she lies beside him, her breath erratic as she fiddles with the blanket to pull over herself.

'Are you cold?' He asks, and at once he wishes he'd not said anything.

'I think...' She throws it over her legs and he pulls it up so it's covering them up to the hips. He can't really see anything of her anyway, save for a dark shadow he took to be her crop of curls. If she stays a few more days he means to burn more logs, to have the fire so bright he can see her entirely, but tonight he's overwhelmed by the outlines and the shadows. They lie on their side facing one another, his hand draped heavy around her side.

She doesn't preamble at all, her small hands moving to stroke his cock in an unsure but bold rhythm. He hisses and she stops, so he takes her hands and pulls them until they are above the sheets. In the dim light he can make out her confusion, so he kisses her again, and for a while they only kiss. They kiss until he's breathless, they kiss until she's a mess of relaxed muscles, they kiss until he begins to press against her, hard and hot at the very bottom of her abdomen. His fingers are clumsy and overeager, but she still gasps as they trail across her skin. He nudges her nose with his own as he parts her legs, his fingers digging in to the flesh of her thigh. She only clings to him, her kisses desperate as she sucks at his lower lip. One of his hands comes to the back of her head while the other teases her, strokes and presses against the skin until he finally parts her and she swears again.

He's slow with it, rubbing softly back and forth against her. She screws her eyes shut and lets her head fall back against the support of his hand while her own press against his chest. His hand moves lower and her mouth falls open as a finger slips inside her. She claws at him, her leg draping over his own as she rocks against his hand, eyes still shut fast. He stops a bit abruptly for her taste, he can tell when she all but growls at him, but it's only to pull her so she's lying on her back and he's between her legs, one hand beside her head while the other tries to align them.

'I'll be honest.' She whispers and there's a tell tale tremor in her voice. She reaches up to lay her hand softly at his cheek and he places a soft kiss at her palm. 'I don't think it'll fit.'

He snorts and she giggles too, propping herself up on her elbow. 'I don't have to...'

'No. Please. You're more than welcome to try.' She places a soft peck on his lips, then lies back down. 'But if it doesn't...'

He shakes his head. 'Arya, if...'

'Please.' She repeats. 'I'm just saying it probably won't.'

It gives him a thrill - and she knows it will, he can tell by the way she scoots a little closer, knees riding up his hips - to think she thinks him big. Petty, he's always thought when men got in to fights and pissing competitions about the size of what they keep in their trousers, because what did it really matter.

She's right of course, it doesn't fit at all. Her thighs press against him as she tenses though she doesn't make a sound as he slides inside of her, the contact burning him. His muscles ache with the urge to fill her, to feel her completely around him, but he keeps pressing and pulling back and pressing and pulling back, giving a little more each time as her hands tighten on his forearms, her legs around his sides. It's slow and his gut burns, a shiver runs its way down his neck as he fights another wave of greed, of pure selfish want.

His hands come to frame her face it's all he can do to kiss her cheeks. Her lips meet his chin and then they're kissing again, but this time they're both trembling,

He doesn't mean to do it, but keeping himself from ploughing completely in to her isn't as easy as it sounds when she's pulling at his neck and shoulders. He clumsily falls forward and all his weight goes behind filling her so quickly her nails draw blood. She tightens around him, both her arms and her legs holding him still. He can feel every breath that racks her body wash over it, and he can feel the gentle pulse of her around him, pulling him in and tempting him.

'Fuck.' She whines as her legs loosen around his hips. 'Oh.'

'Sorry.' He mumbles, pressing his lips to her feverish forehead.

'Ah.' She shakes her head as she sucks in another jagged breath.

He stoops to kiss her again as if that may fix it. If he were a better man he might pull out and hold her, but he doesn't want to truth be told. He jerkily pulls out a little then pushes back in, and she moves with him, since her legs are clinging so tightly to his body. She kisses him as though she is possessed, her lips moving feverishly, her arms looping around his neck to hold him to her.

When he comes, and it doesn't take long once he's not holding back, she's biting down on his shoulder, her eyes closed fast and her feet crossed at his back. She feels him spill, warm and thick inside her, and she can't decide whether or not it's a sensation she will miss. Her muscles ache where she's been clinging to him, and her stomach aches where he's been driving into her somewhere deep between her belly and spine. When he pulls out she feels the cold air, but she can still feel his hardness even as he moves to lie beside her. His arms wrap around her shoulders, pulling her to him so he can press his face in to her now wild hair.

 'Sorry.' He kisses her just behind the ear.

'W'for?' She drawls.

He shrugs, and the movement shakes the whole cot that has now gone eerily still. 'I couldn't last any longer.'

She laughs, and it's light and reminds him that this is his friend, not some stranger. 'Do you think I wanted you to go all night?' The silence that follows is long and loud so she adds, 'It was fun, but it hurt some.'

'Alright, M'lady. I shall never touch you again.' Even for his words he only pulls her closer, his chest scorching against her back. Her hand winds around his.

'I'll stop by when I'm next passing.' She murmurs, eyes drifting closed.

He snorts. 'And what if I come North?'

'You can't come north.' She scowls out at the forge. Her words hold a finality to them and to her relief he doesn't argue, only pulls her slightly tighter and sighs against the back of her neck. It makes the ache in her stomach pulse.

* * *

The black haired man is there with his extra bag of gold when Gendry finally finishes the detail on the final sword. 'A good blade.' He tells him as he holds it up. 'I didn't need to do much to get it there.'

The man takes it when it's offered and holds it up to the light, closing one eye to peer along its length. 'Well. I wish you'd done a shit job, I was sorta hoping...' He shrugs and replaces the hilt before tossing his coin purse to the smith. 'But I did say there was another lot in it for you.'

'Where are your...' He struggles to find a word that translates to the two pompous lords.

'Still asleep. Can't handle their drink like we can.' He grins. 'Or their women.'

Gendry blushes. She's long gone but he can still smell her on his own skin. The bed behind him, pushed back in the corner, is unmade and though there's no real indication, the man smirk says he knows there was someone else there.

'How did you come to be here then?' He asks, raising his eyebrow. 'You're not a northerner.'

'No.'

'So you're one of those mysterious types?'

'Not really.'

'You could be making enough money down south to set up a decent shop...'

'Not going to make much difference in winter is it.' He'd have more time for the man, he knows, if there wasn't the weight in the pit of his stomach, the dazed rage of being woken earlier by the door closing behind her, to the bed cooling beside him. 'More chance of living to spend it up here.'

The man only nods. 'Your lady served my breakfast.'

'Oh?' He feels all at once relieved and disappointed, because he had not even through to check at the inn. 'She told me to tell you if you don't eat and she has to come over here and feed you then you'll be eating it with broken fingers.' He eyes the bed again, then gives Gendry a friendly smile. 'Best not keep her waiting.'

True enough, he's in the inn as soon as the lord is out of the shop, throwing open the door and looking around frantically. Magda sees him and comes across but he's dashing through to the kitchen before she can grab him and make him eat. It's empty but the door out to the back is wide open, the wind whipping through at him like a siren call. He runs for it, boots crunching in the snow. She's not in the yard but he follows the footsteps to the line of trees at the end and through the dense canopy of branches the current flurry couldn't penetrate. Under the trees there's an eerie silence. The snow is thinner here, the flakes falling few and far between, and somehow he feels like time is about to stop as he treads deeper and deeper.

It was strange really, he had just assumed she was gone when he had woken alone, and his body had gone to the anvil without a thought for catching her. Once he had heard she was still there though, once he knew she wasn't running away it was as if his heart would stop if he didn't see her. All around him the trees swayed, and little sounds in the undergrowth pop and click but there's no sound of her.

Then there is. He hears a snarl, it echoes around the columns of the tree trunks and shakes loose some snow from above. He bolts towards it. The snarl becomes a long, low growl, but it's still louder than he's ever heard from any dog. The sound cuts out, and he wonders if it's because of his thundering footsteps getting nearer. He reaches the clearing with a skid of his foot, and there she stands in a fur pelt, looking back at him with her eyes wide as a deer. To his left the thing growls again, and he snaps his head up only to fall on to his backside, the wolf baring her teeth as she stalks towards him.

'Nymeria!' She walks across, taking the beasts head with her hands and pushing it away from the stunned smith as though the wolf were tiny. 'He's a friend. You leave him be.'

'What?' He looks up at her, and now the snow's falling freely down on them, clinging to her hair, melting in her eyelashes, and she looks to him like the spirit of winter itself.

'This is Nymeria.' She explains, offering him her hand, which he takes even if she can't really pull him to his feet. She brushes the snow from his breeches, smiling. 'I didn't think I would ever see her again, but here she is.'

The silence grows comfortable as the wolf sniffs at him, her eyes lowered by way of apology, then turns and roams off in to the trees to sniff around there instead. 'I thought you'd left.'

'Not yet.' She sighs, her breath clouding in front of her. 'Soon though. Could be a few days. Maybe a week...'

'Take me with you when you go.'

She closes her eyes. 'Gendry.'

'It's not too much to ask Arya.'

Yes it is, she thinks as she struggles to word it.

'I didn't think I'd ever see you again. I went on as well as I could but now I know you are alive, now I know you're here...'

'I know.' She smiles sadly. 'But it's not that simple. I'm not sure what I'm even going to say when I get there, and if I turn up with my bastard lover... That was a joke Gendry. My brother's a bastard and king in the north. Jon's hardly going to turn you away and lock me in a tower. '

Nymeria pads over again, this time circling the pair before dropping to her belly behind Gendry and giving out a long yawn. Arya looks at her as if she's just made an argument.

'So it does matter to you?'

'Of course it doesn't.' She's still glaring at Nymeria but her hand reaches out for his and he lets her take it. 'She won't hurt you.' She says as her expression softens. 'You have my scent all over you...'

'Arya, if it doesn't matter...'

'I don't want to be anyone's wife, alright.' She drops his hand and looks at him. Behind him Nymeria drops her head on to her paws. 'I don't want to keep a house, have to entertain lords and ladies.'

'You aren't being asked to.' He frowns down at her. 'I won't ask you to. I just ask that you let me come with you.' He hears the animal's breaths so close behind him and not to tremble when the branches under her shift with movement. 'I'll smith for your brother, I'll fight for him. For you all. And I'll do it as Gendry Waters.'

Arya shrugs, then growls herself when Nymeria gives her a chastising bark. Gendry shakes, the hairs on the back of his neck on end. One again the expression on her face softens and she takes his hand. She kisses him once on the cheek, her lips warm against the chill of his skin. 'Here, maybe if you were to pet her.'

'Maybe she doesn't want me to pet her.' He reasons but Arya is already holding his hand towards the beast.

Nymeria sits up and fixes him with her large brown eyes, he thinks she's almost impatient in the way she's looking at him, tilting her head. He lets Arya pull him the rest of the way, feels the thick fur under his palm. Nymeria pants while Arya tucks herself tight against his side. 'When this storm passes we'll go.'

His hand tightens around her waist while the other hand settles into scratching behind the direwolf's ears in a less cautious rhythm. 'This is more a flurry than a storm.'

She frowns up at him. 'Once we're sure the worst has passed we can go.'

He wishes they would leave right now, but the fear of waking up to find her properly gone without him is lessened by the animal now nuzzling at his palm as though she were a puppy.

'Besides, it's not like you wouldn't know where to find me now.' She presses a kiss to his chest. 'Shall we go back? She'll be fine.'

'Sure.' He takes his hand away and Nymeria is quick to chase it with her tongue, the wet of her nose cold against his fingers. 'Go catch us a deer.' Gendry points at the trees, but she only whines and looks at Arya.

'Catch us a rabbit. Go have fun.' She smiles and the wolf turns and bounds back in to the trees, looking back just the once to find them kissing again in the clearing, her mistress leading him back towards the cover of the trees.


End file.
